


longing. rusted. seventeen. daybreak.

by felldragons (orphan_account)



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: (Slight) Canon Divergence, Captain America: Civil War (Movie) Spoilers, Comfort From Animals, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, M/M, Memory Loss & Identity Issues, Past Torture, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Shower Sex
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-09
Updated: 2016-05-12
Packaged: 2018-06-07 08:26:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,944
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6796633
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/felldragons
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I will try to be a correct animal though, and if you throw me a bone with enough meat on it I may even lick your hand."</p>
<p>—F. Scott Fitzgerald, <i>The Crack Up (1936)</i><br/></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. longing.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Three words mean _I am Winter_. Ten words mean _I am ready to comply_.

_You are Winter._

They— _They_ are the voices of malevolent gods, his unquestioned masters, the all-powerful wielders of the whip and chain—and oh, how They _whisper_. 

They whisper as they cinch the thick, bruising manacles tight around his bicep, sternum, _throat_. With one one instantaneous whir of machinery, They bind him fast to a bed of iron and worn, cracked leather. Ancient blood paints the crevassed surface in ugly shades of brownish rust. The horrid machine is a sick, hungry spider that dangles above his head, and it slowly descends upon him once more. 

_You are Winter_ , say the faceless scientists, repeating themselves again and again and again in monotonous litany, engraving the cold itself into his tattered soul. 

longing

(No. 'They' do not whisper. They _shout_. They strike with steel and fist. A whisper is a quiet thing and quiet is something They will never be.)

rusted 

('They' do not whisper. They shout. That means the whispering is all in his head.)

seventeen

(A whisper. A shout. Does he even know the difference anymore?)

daybreak

(No. There is no difference. Not for him. A whisper is a shout, same as how a touch is a punch. This is the way things are.)

furnace

nine 

benign 

homecoming 

one

freight car

(Three words mean _I am Winter_. Ten words mean _I am ready to comply_.)

You are Winter, They say.

He believes Them.

Despite the choking confusion that pummels itself against the bones of his ribcage like some panicked, trilling sparrow hellbent on achieving liberation... he believes Them. He believes Them even as every other word to have ever slithered past Their foul lips transforms to dust just like that, becomes fallacy rather than truth _just like that_. Ever since that day, that name, that man... all that he once thought he understood of himself and his purpose became as infuriatingly intangible as the rest of his muddled mind. Ever since that day. That name. That man...

His man. 

He’d known him, the lion-hearted soldier with too-gentle eyes, the kind of eyes that hold the sea in their depths. He'd watched his own cruel face reflect back at him in the almost-stranger’s wide eyes of such a startling blue, so clear and vulnerable as they fixated upon his face, drank him in. Those eyes, that voice—they’d _done_ something to him, punching straight through armor and chill bone to penetrate the Winter Soldier’s hollowed-out flesh, grasping at a faint phantom thing and ripping it right out of him. Exposing it to the daylight like a still weeping wound, weak and tender; an easy notch for a blade to catch and cut deeply, twist, the quick flutter of a wrist—

The Winter Soldier would not mind that death, steadily bleeding out with nothing but achingly familiar cerulean for as far as he could see, brilliant and beckoning and _home_ ; he’d allow himself to sink deeper into the roaring sapphire brine of those eyes until breath no longer filled the sails of his lungs, heart gone as dead and cold as the rest of his patchwork body, a body more machine than man. Such a pretty death it would be… 

An end far too sweet for him. So much death has been wrought by his wicked hands that he can _feel_ the filthy blackness tainting his flesh—the sick, ugly rot of his countless sins always there, _always_ , a fetid plague of foulness and ferocity festering in the marrow of his bones. He is a feral dog undeserving of any mercy or kindness, scarred muzzle drenched with blood, blood, _blood_. The only death awaiting him is the gunshot that’ll finally, blessedly, scorch through his rabid brain. 

The realization comes to him just as the metallic taste of pain is beginning to streak across his tongue—realization that he doesn’t want to forget this man, this man whom he both does and does not know. Doesn’t want to forget dragging him out of the river, a beaten, broken thing himself, compelled onward by such an intense, heart-clenching surge of emotion he cannot even begin to comprehend. Doesn’t want to forget the sharp lines of his man’s—no, no, his _mission’s_ chiseled jaw, and how defiant bionic fingers had dared to ghost along those hard, sweeping contours before he fled like the frightened animal that he was, all instinct and ardent adrenaline, palms still slick with the man’s lifeblood. He doesn't want to forget those eyes, bright and blue…

No, he does _not_ want to forget anymore. Never did—he has never wanted to forget, not once, not ever. So… why do his masters subject him to such horrendous misery? Why, why, _why_? The Winter Soldier finds that he cannot scream, bitter black plastic obstructing his agonized shrieks, smothering him with the captured sounds of his own making. He knows very well that the restraints will hold, just as he knows that he’s no more to Them—anyone—than a mindless creature kept chained at the end a leash, obedient to the same men who beat him, whip him, destroying him over and over—a vicious, ceaseless cycle—only to build him back up again. He is no more than a wind-up toy resurrected constantly from restless snow dreams, tossed back onto the gameboard only when blood needed loosing from veins. 

But he fights anyway, and it comes easier than he’d expected, this strange new desire to rebel. A vicious snarl tears itself free from his heaving chest, teeth gritted against the mouthguard and starving for flesh. Of course, the struggle is futile, so futile… thrashing legs and clenched fists prove useless against a fire already kindled to life behind his bloodshot eyes, intent on burning and burning until all that he was, or might have once been, is no more than smoldering ash. 

White-hot. An all-consuming conflagration… and then lead-heavy blackness in his head, thoughts and faces and all glimmers of feeling peeling away until absolutely nothing remains but the pain. That’s all the Winter Soldier knows— _pain_.

* * *

.  
.  
.  


A dream?

The assassin peers out through a screen of unkempt hair. The damp, dirty strands and snarled clumps cling to his nose, cheeks, lips. Everything is sharp, _too sharp_ , the entire world glistening as moonlight does when it pirouettes upon a knife’s razor-edge. It’s a war drum beat of instinct and fear, pain and panic, that thunders through the blued veins bulging taut beneath his skin, his furious blood roaring murder so loudly in his ears that it nearly manages to drown out the incessant cacophony of this noisy, sleepless city.

A dark, brooding sky gradually comes into view from between the knotted strands that obscure his view—a palette of gunmetal grey made heavy with menacing clouds. The dirty locks of hair plastered so stubbornly to his forehead, chin, cheekbones, throat—all are wet. As for the cause: an overnight rain, he figures. Heartbeats come as cannon blasts within his shuddering chest, shaking every sinewed fiber of his tortured ghost shell of a body to its empty, icy core. The Winter Soldier forces himself to regain control of his mutinying limbs, teeth clenching so tightly a dim flare of pain sparks down his rigid spine. He somehow manages to steady his erratic breathing, and with it, most of the intense trembling that holds him firmly in its grasp.

Just a dream.

He groans quietly, summoning up whatever scant strength lingers in his weary bones to raise a hand and brush the annoying hair off of his face. Gritting his teeth against the banshee shriek of agony that threatens to claw its way up and out of his throat (although he’d snapped the dislocated shoulder back into position with a fast, vicious twist days ago, the injury being only one of many sustained at the hands of his man—no! no, no, no, not his man, his _mission_ —moving the arm in any way still brings waves of sick misery crashing down upon him; the flesh around his non-mechanized shoulder screams its sorrows, bruising canary yellow and deep, agonizing plum), he orders his body to obey, frigid fingertips making their way up to his stubbled jaw. The soldier’s movements are slow and unsteadily jagged, formerly lightning-swift reflexes dulled to a point of strange, disorienting unfamiliarity. He is Winter, and he is Death, too, but maybe his has also become Atlas now… Atlas, accursed bearer of the world, crushed to his raw, red knees beneath the weight of all that is and all that will ever be—that’s who he feels like now, prisoner to some unbearable pressure seated square upon his chest, exhaustion as anvil heavy as lead in his smarting, stinging bones.

Where has he even heard of this mythical Atlas, bearer of worlds? He doesn’t know, doesn’t know, doesn’t know _anything_ —and the ignorance aches in him, pulsing in the pits of his eyes. There's a funeral song in his weary bones, a battle hymn for reaper soldiers, and it goes something like ' _know nothing but your knife and the throat you must imbed it into_ '—it’s a sad song, his song, and those few flimsy lyrics are the only words familiar to his tongue.

He is a battered and beaten war dog left forgotten in the rubble, dragging his mangy hide out from beneath the ruins of all that his miserable existence has ever been to suddenly find all his tethers severed; dumb and blinking, alone and overwhelmed, he licks his wounds and desperately tries to stitch himself back together because that’s all he knows how to do. Get up, patch up, keep going.

The Winter Soldier gets up. A film of gauzy white that he recognizes all too well as shining, over-bright pain seeps into the edges of his vision. With a dizzying, tinny wail ringing sharp in his ears and a mouth full of grit, his tongue tasting of blood and dust, he drags himself up into a limp sitting position, shredded fingernails scrabbling uselessly for purchase in the slick, rank metal of the dumpster. It's hard against his wounded shoulder, acting as a much needed anchor for him—an object to steady himself upon.

Police sirens and car horns scream their presence in the distance; his own laborious breathing echoes deafeningly loud in his ears; fleshed knuckles slide over filthy steel with a quiet squelch. Thick-soled boots scuffle on asphalt; sodden fabric shifts, gathers; a sharp exhalation of air hisses out from between teeth when he agitates an oozing, freshly reopened wound—

He agitates something else, too.

A pathetic whisper of a sound, utterly pitiful, easily snatched up and spirited away by the eddying wind. Mewling, he realizes. The weak cries of some tiny, frail animal, so painfully sweet and young and innocent.

A kitten. The assassin stares blankly at the scrap of sandy yellow fur, brow creasing slowly, confounded by this impossibly surreal scenario he now finds unfurling before him. Impossible… simply impossible. The thing is tiny. Looks half-dead, soaked and trembling, starvation worn clearly on its patchy pelt in the form of a deep, concave belly and needle sharp ribs. It has curled itself into the elbow of his bionic arm, blind eyes still tightly shut, its petal-soft face tucked snugly into a junction where bands of whirring cable meet a thick sheet of weathered titanium. Impossible, his whirling, splintered mind insists, unwilling to believe that this small, shivering thing hasn’t shrunken away from him. And yet, this is how things are. Impossibly possible. The kitten seeks comfort in the junction of this awful, unnatural mechanism that is the weaponized prosthesis, a thing sewn onto him where another arm, a real one, should be.

He attempts to slide his arm free, injuries and fatigue all but forgotten in the wake of this puny, squirming surprise. But the abrupt loss of heat—oh, _oh_ , it must’ve been attracted to the warmth radiating from the metal arm, whatever gears and machinery that power his bionic limb emitting enough energy to warm the otherwise hard, unforgiving surface from shoulder to fingertip—immediately rouses the pathetic animal, the slew of alarmed noises it manages to produce from that weak, starving body high-pitched and sorrowful.

The assassin’s fingers twitch at his side. He wants to… to _touch_ it. Such a sad, lonely thing, and so lost… blind and helpless, the kit desperately searching for the warmth of another living being.

It reminds him of himself. It reminds him of someone else, too, and an all new breed of pain stirs to life in his chest.

But… he can’t. He cannot touch the kitten.

He is Winter. He is brutal, and he is merciless. He moves as fast as the frigid December winds do when they whip through the barren branches of trees, racing along frost-burnt ground with all the fury of the world. He opens bodies just as quickly with a blade. Cleaves off heads with a garrote of thin piano wire. He can shoot a man at point-blank range and do it unflinchingly, crimson splattering across his face, dripping in his hair. He can eliminate a target from afar, just as adept and deadly with a sniper rifle as he is with anything else. All objects become weapons in his hands. If there is no opportunity for attack, he will _make one_ , silently slipping through space to appear, like the angel of death, from shadow.

He cannot be gentle—he does not know how. Whatever gentleness he might’ve once had—who was he really? _who had he once been?_ —has been pounded out of him, extracted like teeth. Everything that he touches will _die_.

But not that man on the bridge.

The kitten’s mewls grow weaker.

He doesn’t understand why, or how, but the Winter Soldier knows that his mission—the blue-eyed captain—could be gentle. _Is_ gentle.

And that man would save this cat.

He tentatively reaches for the kitten, expecting his rough, brutish hands to crush the little thing the moment he makes contact with its cornflower fur. They do not, although it squeals when he finally gathers enough nerve to trail a cautious fingertip over the stark line of its spine. He freezes, aghast, and is primed to recoil—but then the kit quiets and worms closer, toward both metal and battle-scarred skin alike. Carefully—so very, very carefully—he scoops the baby cat up into his arms and tucks his jacket around it.

What the fuck is he doing? 

He doesn’t know, doesn’t know, _doesn’t know_. 

But for once, it feels… right. 

The Winter Soldier melds into the shadows of this dark, damp alleyway without a backward glance.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote this fanfic in a frantic, emotional haze after seeing Captain America: The Winter Soldier for the first time. After madly working on it for a few days straight... I proceeded to not touch it for 2 years. 
> 
> Since smashing this fic out so long ago, I feel that my writing style has really grown into a vastly different beast. Nonetheless, seeing Civil War finally compelled me to revisit this piece and after giving it a little bit of a fine tuning to make it more compliant with CA:CW, this bad boy is finally getting posted. (I'll admit: any typos that remain are there because I'm just too damn tired of staring at it.)
> 
> This was inspired by a (really, really) old prompt that went something like "Bucky finding comfort in baby animals". Being who I am, I combined this with a hearty helping of Bucky struggling to heal post-TWS, both physically and mentally, and reconcile with his fragmented sense of self.


	2. rusted.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He was warm once. Maybe he can become warm again.

longing

rusted

seventeen

daybreak

furnace

_"Who the hell is Bucky?"_  


* * *

.  
.  
.

" _C'mon, Stevie. You’ve gotta get up for me, okay? Can you do that_?"

These are Bucky’s words, spoken in Bucky’s voice. They trickle from his mouth and tongue in a river of smooth silk, whisper-soft and easy, natural. Gentle—that’s what his touch is, _gentle_ , gentle and soft upon Steve’s hollow cheek, no more than a ghost’s shy, fleeting caress, there and gone in a blink, a breath, a heartbeat. His fingertips _belong_ to this boy’s skin, hungering to trace every single shadow that has gathered and settled, like folds of inky satin, on the planes of Steve’s face. His feathery touch slowly ventures northward, over too-sharp cheekbones and a forehead glossed with a thin sheen of sweat. Steve’s feverish flesh feels damp and clammy beneath his palms, and the realization incites a knife twist of _wrongness_ in his side.

Illness has always desired to steal Steve Rogers from this world, and his friend’s feeble body—as fragile as glass, brittle and all-too breakable—seems to want nothing more than to give up and accept its horrible misfortune. But Steve… Steve is strong. Steve is a fighter, and he’s worth more than a hundred men put together. Kind-hearted and fiercely brave, tenderly compassionate in a way that doesn’t require motive or effort… that’s Steve Rogers in a nutshell, and being a good person is as easy—and _right_ —to Steve as eating, breathing. He's got more heart than anyone Bucky has ever known. Something as menial as the common cold cannot send Steve Rogers to the grave. _No_ , not a damn cold, not when they’ve weathered so much worse together. Steve just _can’t_ die. Not when there's still a whole life left to be lived. 

This time is different though, and Bucky feels the grim truth of the situation deep down in his gut… even if he cannot bring himself to admit it. Steve’s breaths are shallow and raspy, rattling through his pallid, heaving chest. Bucky doesn’t need to know a damn thing about medicine to see that his Steve is sick very badly. Infection has settled itself into Steve’s respiratory system, pneumonia threatening to hook in its claws, and unless Steve starts to perk up soon, preferably _now_ … it might just stay there.

_What would I do if I lost you, Steve?_ The thought is another stinging blade in his belly, twisting, twisting. Anguish slices his innards to pieces and leaves a foul taste in his mouth. 

He strokes Steve’s temples with the backside of his palm carefully, as if Steve might dissolve right then and there beneath his touch… as if the faulty envelope that holds his soul might evaporate in a plume of smoke.

Maybe this is the illness that will kill Steve. Maybe Steve will really leave him, this time. Maybe this is their last night together.

Bucky's tears are salty-hot when they catch in the corner of his mouth. 

He is watching the person he cannot live without _wither_. It is unthinkable. It is earth-shattering, world-destroying. A future without Steve? Impossible. And yet, here they are: Steve probably-dying right beside him, quaking like palsy as he curls himself into the curve of Bucky’s body. 

He hates this— how he can’t do a damn thing to save Steve from the suffering. Not a damn thing. 

Steve agitates slightly, murmuring into sheets and pillow. He groans. Turns his cheek into the palm Bucky had been stroking against his sweaty throat and clenched jawbone. 

He sprawls out beside Steve, propping himself up on an elbow.

“Please, Steve… you’ve got to get up. You need to eat somethin’. C'mon, buddy, get up now. Get up for me.” Bucky breathes the words out like a sigh, a whispered almost-prayer, lips hovering just above the shell of Steve’s ear. Even here, at this arc of cartilage, Steve radiates sickly heat. Stubborn ice-sliver tears prick the corners of Bucky’s eyes... and his teeth sink further into the soft tissue of his inner cheek to prevent those tears from falling any further. Incisors catch on ragged flesh; stabs of pain keep Bucky strong and focused. Bucky Barnes isn't going to give up on Steve Rogers so easily.

He draws little circles and idle loops into Steve’s jawline with bare fingertips. Then his fingers dip lower, over the twitching bulge of his Adam’s apple. He brings up his other hand, wanting to caress the sticky blond hair draped across Steve’s forehead—

And that's when everything splinters, like a dizzy, disjointed funhouse mirror shattering into hundreds of jagged, cutting fragments, all sharp and stinging, reflecting their own incongruous image of the same face, same eyes, or… or maybe it’s like the rippled, stormy surface of a lake as two bodies crash into it, fiery debris nipping at their heels. Thrashing limbs desperately claw through water, heart screaming with urgency—he must reach the man who floats, suspended, just outside of his reach… he must, he _must_ …

This is Bucky Barnes; these are his hands, a matched pair, and this is his memory. He—the Winter Soldier— _is not_ Bucky Barnes, but he also _is_ Bucky Barnes, and when he looks down there now seems to be four hands in total reaching for Steve Rogers. One set consists of metal and thick, scarred flesh marred by scabs and rich, wine-colored bruises that cut across the backs of his fingers. The other two hands—Bucky Barnes’s hands—have yet to see war or death, have yet to end another's life, and feel so familiar in their sturdy, work-toughened way that it scares him—are these his hands, too?—and through all of the fear and confusion, the aching sensation of _loss_ rises in him like bile, like song. Every fiber in his body seem to hum in response to this memory. _Memory, memory_. 

Both pairs of hands reach for Steve, threading shaking fingers through flaxen hair. 

Steve wakes. Golden eyelashes flutter once, twice. They catch beams of moonlight in their honeyed strands and scatter the silvery shine with each flickering movement. 

Shadows are thrown, silhouettes illuminated. The Winter Soldier becomes Bucky Barnes in this remembered moment of tense, withheld breath, his anxiety coiled up tight inside of him like a living thing, parasitic and squeezing… but then Steve wakes, and the thick, roiling fear dissipates with a strangled laugh.

This is _Steve_ , the guy who regularly takes a beating from bullies twice his size. He'll pull through.

Bucky's relief is an audible thing, and somewhat… bubbly. Very much like a sob, if a sob could ever be equal parts elation and hysteria. Four different hands converge into two, overlapping at the edges. His body knows what to do even if his mind does not. 

“Hey there, Buck,” Steve croaks, his voice wispy and tired, rough as silt. “What's wrong…? Y-You... you worried that I'm… I'm goin' somewhere, or something...?” Exhausted, yes. But… alive. He’s _alive_ , and Bucky… the Winter Soldier… one entity, one broken man—he can see, in the shafts of milky moon glow that push and pull with the gestures of the curtains, that Steve is _smiling_. 

His fingers remain on Steve’s face, stroking his hot, feverish cheeks.

“'Heh, you wish. I can't _wait_ to get this ugly mug of yours outta my sight. But... y'know, on second thought... I don't think that'll do, Steve— all this talk about you _going somewhere_. I like having you around too damn much."

"Let’s get some soup in you now, alright? Before you get any skinnier…” Bucky smirks when he leans in close again, closer than necessary, eager to drink in the feeling of whatever slight shivers his body’s closeness to Steve’s body might bring. He shifts his weight, one arm slinging across the other boy’s chest to pull them flush together, and those faint shivers _do _come to life against him. Steve seems to flush hotter beneath his hands, and the boy's eyes, illness-glazed, are still bright enough to shine blue in the faint light. A soft, bitten back yelp floats out into the surrounding air when Bucky's lips find the curve of that ear again, blond hair tickling his nose. Small, swift hands futilely push at his chest—not even trying to throw him off, Bucky notes, no real force behind those palms—and then they are close and very still, just laughing and breathing.__

“…You _punk_.” He whispers, and there’s so much stupid happiness in him— happiness because he got some laughter out of his dear friend, despite the sickness burning Steve up on the inside— that Bucky feels like it just might choke him.

* * *

.  
.  
.

The Winter Soldier shoves his head beneath the faucet, teeth clenched hard enough to send an ache hammering through his jawbone. Cold water douses his cheeks and throat, dripping into eyes and hair. One blink. Two blinks. A shaky exhalation, whistling out from between teeth. 

The cold gets in him, in his brain and blood, tearing apart that faint, waifish warmth with frigid talons. Deep, dead apathy returns to him, and he recognizes it as the blank, numb white-noise that follows and fills the gaps ripped open by shock. The loss of all feeling comes like a dagger to the gut, wrenching and visceral, the cruel winter wind buffeting through him and strafing that fuzzy, dreamlike memory until only a familiar, whitewashed _nothing_ remains within him. No hazy, fogged-glass fragments of tiny blond boys with brave blue eyes, or the sparking sensation that raced down his spine when he—he?—had touched said boy, both of his hands made of tender flesh. 

He lifts his wet, dripping head to meet the grey-blue iciness of his own stare.

No. There’s no way in hell that he could be Bucky Barnes—whoever Bucky Barnes even truly _was_. The light, buoyant boy in the shredded memory, whose smile had been wide and true in the saturated purple of night... that Bucky Barnes had been so young, an individual just beginning the transition from adolescent to man. An almost-man who found his shoulders broadening and his legs lengthening, all as muscles started to fill out the plains of his golden skin that had stretched smooth and flat before. Girls fancied Bucky, not Steve, but Bucky had always dragged the other boy along with him everywhere he went; that’s just how it was and everyone accepted it, as a law of nature should be accepted. Bucky was the coif of dark hair to Steve’s fair, flaxen locks, which were forever swept neatly into place by the loving hands of Steve's mother. Bucky was the amiable, wily stallion to Steve’s pragmatic, bull-headed work horse— the dutiful muscle to Steve's cunning and courageous wit.

Bucky Barnes and Steve Rogers were different, yes, but they both were creatures who grew with their faces turned up towards the sun. Bucky knew the other boy’s heart like the back of his own hand, could hear the truth of the tune it beat, because they were, at the most vital of parts, one and the same—same soul, two bodies—and Steve would always be right at his side in their youthful escapades, his shy grin gone sharp with excitement. 

Steve remained milky pale while Bucky would lounge shirtless in the summer sun (all because of how sensitive Steve’s skin was; it had a perchance for burning up all lobster-like, and it'd absolutely abhorred Bucky to see how much pain the peeling caused his Stevie). Even their blue eyes were complementary opposites, two very different breeds of blue. Steve’s were hungry-watchful, made of blue-green stone, and seemed constantly fluid and lively in his quiet, carefully way— a way that was observant and kind and starved for adventure, starved for purpose of being. Bucky’s were a few shades cooler. Bucky's eyes gleamed harder, a chill silver-blue steel that was good for intimidation. 

Which was a benefit, really, because Bucky protected Steve. Even if Steve insisted that he required no such thing, Bucky protected him, and that’s just the way their world spun. 

James Buchanan Barnes— that was his full name. And James Buchanan Barnes was summer. Summer, with its vivid, lively things, mouth curved into a wily, crooked smile no matter what sort of boyish mischief he’d rope himself into— be it a tussle with a bunch of neighborhood thugs or a date with the latest pretty dame, whose giggles would bubble in his ear as they danced, and he’d be chuckling, too, but with eyes only on Steve as he watched the other boy attempt an ill-fated jitterbug with the pretty dame’s friend. He was warmth, and noise, and raucous, chest-shaking laughter. He was scabbed knuckles and scraped-raw knees painted red with Mercurochrome. He was the steady, pleasant _thump-thump_ of aliveness thrumming through veins, in ears and throats, pounding as loud and jubilant as ever. Pounding away, even when Steve was patching him up after another fight, shooting him a tight-lipped look of worried exasperation—a look that never could quite eclipse the tender fondness in Steve’s eyes—as he’d dab a wet cloth against Bucky’s ground-meat face, who was aglow with triumph rather than pain.

Summer held hands with spring. Steve was the shyer, surer tune to Bucky's joyful, infectious beat. Steve was painted in more modest hues, none too garish or greedy; he was a burst of new life, like the pushing of delicate watercolor buds up through clods of melting snow; he was resilience against malicious winter and its pain, and its hopelessness, and its endless, dreary-gray skies. He who could manage to conjure up a reassuring smile even when Bucky’s own faith in beauty had been lost—that was Steve, his sweet spring, steadfast to a flaw and in possession of such a strong, boundless sense of right and wrong, of justice and injustice. 

But the Winter Soldier was not… could not be… Bucky. All of the flowers in his heart were blackened things with frost curling their petals. If he had ever contained a small sliver of that roaring eternal summer, alive and humming with the constant, comforting discord of a familiar, unfamiliar city… 

It was dead now. 

The assassin’s brow furrows as he drags a musty-smelling towel down his face and over his bedraggled hair. For all he knows, that memory could be a planted thing. Another Hydra-birthed fallacy he had mistaken, like the blind, whipped mutt he'd been, for truth. And yet, despite all his weariness... like a siren song, the lingering image of Bucky Barnes tending to that sick, scrawny Steve beckons to him. That foggy memory, or phony, implanted lie, whatever the fuck it was… it’d felt so jarringly different from anything else to have ever come from his captors. For once, he suspects that his dream had been of his own making... and the dream had once been _real._

Floodgates are beginning to open within him, spilling out the wondrous, confounding discoveries of independent thoughts and feelings.

Still, he continues to run from both, and with stubbornness he didn't even know he possessed, he shuns the fragile, lone memory, too… or tries to shun it, at least. Why? Well, he doesn’t know the reason for that either. 

Is he afraid? If he is, then it’s a foreign sensation to him. Just as foreign as feelings themselves, and mercy, too, and gentleness. 

Fear is as terrifyingly unfamiliar as the agonized, self-repulsed _no_ that had ripped through him, eaten its way up and out of his throat, when his metal fist had slammed its last concussive blow into the Captain’s brutalized cheek and the man had fallen away from him. There, and then… gone, the Captain was gone, bringing with him the ghostly-faint presence of spring and all manner of soft, flowered things the Winter Soldier had felt upon his knuckles when alloyed steel greeted flesh, splitting it and spilling blood with each hammering motion. 

Steve Rogers. The Captain. They are one entity, and _his voice_ presses itself against the walls of his mind again, against the dark, shaded blackness behind his eyelids, heavy and hurting. His expression cracks into a pained grimace and in an effort to think of different things, the Winter Soldier drags his gaze from his reflection and fixates his attention upon the task of toweling down the bionic arm instead. He eases a scratchy cloth over the interlocked plates and hot, whirring gears, and all the while he reminds himself that his mind is no good. He cannot trust such a broken, battered thing, and with those huge white gaps in his head, yawning around the sole memory of a night fraught with worry and relief, so raggedy and fragile… it isn’t promising, to have only that one meager shard to cling to. He doesn’t want to pin any faith upon something so insubstantial. 

He catches himself in the lie of his own thoughts. _If you don't believe that you could be Bucky, then why do you still wear your hair long and tangled? It is now yours to cut as you please._

_Because if I cut my hair, the sight of Bucky Barnes staring back at me in the mirror will kill me_.

Without a single thought more, the Winter Soldier discards the grubby towel and exits the bathroom. He attempts to walk slowly, carefully, in a measured pace, but no matter what movement he makes he is always far too sharp, always more battering ram than man. Even now, he prowls fast and silent, with a lethal, unnervingly quality about his stride that he can't quite stifle yet. The Winter Soldier is warily conscious of it now, bare feet inciting absolutely no creak or squeak from the floorboards beneath his toes. It's a good thing, actually. He doesn’t want to startle the kitten. 

He does not startle it. Even as he drops into a crouch beside its small slumbering form, the minuscule creature gives no indication that it’s even aware of his presence. Breath bottled up in his chest, the Winter Soldier extends a slow, cautious hand out toward the cat, fingertips quivering when contact is finally made between fleshed fingers and scrappy yellow fur. Numerous patches of fluff are missing here and there, but that which remains is still so soft, as soft as swansdown beneath his rough, calloused touch. No startled mewl interrupts the still, stagnant silence. Rather, the kitten yawns with its tiny maw and inches closer. 

His hands, like his face and shaggy hair, are clean. Not pure… for he shall never atone for his sins, shall never be redeemed, the unspeakable horrors wrought by his hands forever etched into him as scars that are felt rather than seen, reminding him always, always, always of what he has done… but they are _clean_ at the very least, finally scrubbed free of such sticky, miserable filth. 

It had taken an arduously long time to scrape away every last bit of the crescents of gore collected beneath his fingernails. His throat had thickened with a soupy, bile-tasting concoction of disgust and horror, and his eyes burned with tears, as he washed and washed until, finally, not a single drop of old, browned blood clung to his skin. He hadn’t been able to stomach the thought of handling such a fragile, uncorrupted creature until the aftermath of his final mission had been sponged away. 

Now that he is indeed clean, and the kit has fallen into a deep, peaceful slumber, the assassin isn't quite sure what to do with himself. 

For now, they are safe. He does not fear discovery. Not yet. He’d chosen this particular apartment to commandeer for the next couple of days after careful, thorough examination. The quaint, compact place must've sat unoccupied for a great deal of time now, its utter lack of habitation made apparent by the stale, musty air and the fine layer of dust that coats every available surface, floating thick and snow-like about the room. The place had been gutted like a fish, scaled and filleted, all furniture extracted save one poor, lonely couch and a few misbegotten chairs, all of which had been knocked askew and left lying on their backs, legs raised in surrender. The cat and he are without water, heat, and light in this decrepit apartment, but the Winter Soldier does his best to take care of their basic needs. 

The kitten seems very content, curled up as it is in its makeshift bed of his jacket and shirt. Just as he'd broken in to secure this temporary lodging, the Winter Soldier saw no other option but to commit another illegal act—so he stole, from a misfortunate convenience store—to obtain food, clothes, and other necessary supplies. The act fares low on his guilt list, considering that he is a _murderer_ … but no blood has been spilt, no innocent lives needlessly taken, and having gathered what was needed for him and the kitten to eek out an existence for another day… well, he considers the whole ordeal a success. 

Killing, killing, killing. That’s all he knows, and it’s all he’s good for. There is simply no room for a walking weapon in civilian life, where peace is taken for granted and everyday hardships are no more severe than coffee going cold during the morning commute, a particularly stubborn paper cut, or a missed bus on a hellishly rainy day. 

His sanity slips farther and farther from grasp with each barrage of roiling, relentless nostalgia. There come sudden moments of confliction, of strangled breath, when the dead-eyed, dead-hearted Hydra "asset" part of him declares war upon his freshly liberated, paper-thin mind— a mind weakened by fear and ignorance, but fiercely empowered by the addictive flavor of free-will. These... lapses of self... rattle him more and more, and unease creeps beneath his skin to take up permanent residence there. The Winter Soldier fears that he will find himself back in the fridge at any moment, his handlers’ cruel, talon-like fingers appearing from nothingness to press him down into that dreadful chair and then, even further, into the cold, restless oblivion of cryostasis.

Or even worse, Hydra will not come for him at all, and he—as his free-will tears itself away, as _all_ things are eventually torn from him—will slowly succumb to the primitive, diseased mind of the puppet soldier who cannot feel or think for himself. 

He doesn’t want that to happen. 

He doesn’t want to finish that mission.

_His_ mission. 

Anxious hands entangle themselves in velvety fur as golden as wheat. The flickering candlelight makes the kitten’s patchwork pelt glow a shade of soft, buttery yellow. His metallic fingers move with the paced tentativeness of those afraid to injure. He barely manages to muster up enough courage to stroke one of the kitten’s delicately furled ears, apprehensive of the unbridled power in his shiny, battle-gouged bionic arm. The kit’s diminutive body fits entirely within one of his palms. 

“Where is your mother?” He asks suddenly, lips releasing the silly question out into the still, dust-thickened air before his mind has any chance to intervene with logic. The sound of his hard, gravelly voice, roughened and unsteady from disuse, startles him more than it startles the cat. A few subconscious twitches from its petite paws are all he gets in response. 

Even if the animal could have somehow answered, the Winter Soldier already knows the probable state of its mother. He and the kitten are both orphans—the unknown mother cat either dead in a grime-glossed alleyway or apathetic enough to have cast out the runt of her litter, having deemed him too small and sickly to survive. His own mother… whoever she had been... was gone from the world. He doesn’t know how he knows, be it intuition or some sad, mournful twist in his gut… but he just _does_.

Silence. Sadness, too. A gaping rift he hadn’t even known had existed within him seems to open up anew. 

The tiny runt fits nicely in his cupped hands, snoozing away without a care in the world. The Winter Soldier is reminded of _something_ , at that moment… something that was small and yellow-haired, too, fitting so nicely beside him that it felt like _it_ belonged there always, an extension of him in both body and mind, that breathed when he breathed, and whose heart beat for his as his beat for _it_ , in return… but then _it_ is gone. He is inserted back into the present with no more than a faint, wispy impression of the _something_ prodding around at the back of his mind. 

“I… I'll take care of you.” He promises the fellow motherless creature in a voice as harsh and unmusical as the grating of steel upon steel—but it’s beginning to soften some, sound a tiny bit more… okay. And his heart is softening too, he wants to imagine. There are cracks appearing in the ice that has encapsulated him, kept him blisteringly cold both inside and out, for as long as he can remember. 

Yes, he’s afraid. Whatever remains of his Hydra programming struggles fiercely against the revolution that has begun to take root within him. Absolutely everything that he’s been conditioned to believe, without question or thought, is now at odds with his internal meltdown. Winter shall not release him easily; winter is in his bones, his blood, his head, and cold is all that he knows. 

_But I was warm once._

He was warm once. Maybe he can become warm again.

The Winter Soldier finally allows his fatigue to claim him, sprawling his aching body out on the rickety old couch. With the kitten asleep upon his chest, and that threadbare shard of a memory clutched tightly to him, his eyelids flutter closed. The memory he holds, merely a _ghost_ -memory, is of another boy’s pale, fever-hot flesh— and of blue eyes, flecked with green.

When he is half-asleep, he can almost believe that there's already a little lick of sunlight stirring itself back to life somewhere deep, deep down inside of him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 2 years later and I'm still such a sucker for Bucky/pre-serum!Steve. Civil War would've been so much cooler with more Bucky-remembers-Steve-from-the-past moments. And more hugs. But we get what we get, I suppose.


	3. seventeen.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Christ, _yes _, this is where he belongs, where he has always belonged, fitting into this other man so smoothly, perfectly, like a hook into its eye.__

nine

benign 

homecoming 

one

freight car 

_"...But I knew him."_

* * *

.  
.  
.

_Steam... so much steam_. It clings to him, hanging upon his face and shoulders, so soupy and humid. Little droplets of sticky perspiration trickle down between his shoulder blades. The shower door’s glass has gone opaque with condensation; a thin, dewy veil glistens upon its surface. Breathless and disoriented, he throws both hands out to steady himself. Heaves in lungfuls of hot, misty air. His splayed fingers drag streaks through the eddying fog… press messy handprints into the dripping glass… and then he’s leaning forward, and his body, warm and wet, curves closer to that now familiar _something_. He has just invaded the _something’s_ personal space… and it thrills him all the way to his toes. His lips twist into a lazy smirk. 

Steam, steam _everywhere_ … even coiled up inside of him, buzzing about in his lower belly. It’s a fuzzy, fizzing feeling… all of his thoughts are faraway and soft, cotton-like. He’s drunk… _extremely_ drunk. 

For a moment, the Winter Soldier thinks that the swirling haze is just another side-effect of whatever Hydra did to him to fuck up his head, to suppress memories like this one— a memory of steam and drunkenness, of swaying off-white tile and salty skin. Maybe it’s like his other mostly-regained memory… like the one of a feverish, sickly boy named Steve— little Steve with the pretty blue eyes, little Steve who belonged to Bucky Barnes. That memory had been blurry around the edges in a similar way, haloed in gauzy white. 

But then the _heat_ comes. 

Eager flames ignite the placid fizziness that smolders within him, while his— _Bucky's_ —heartbeat booms loudly, erratically. The rushing of his blood feels lIke a drumbeat in his eardrums, and The Winter Soldier recognizes the experience as a shiver of excitement. _Want_. He is pleased to have slipped back into the mind of the man he ~~probably~~ used to be. 

Especially now. Now, in this long-lost world of steam and warmth. A forgotten world. _Their_ world. 

Steve. Steve is the _something_ , and he begins to take shape in the fog. 

Slender fingers. Bony wrists. A handsome, milky back that is _Bucky’s_ territory, marked and mapped many a time by the flesh of his own two hands. Steve is all his to touch. _Only his_. Steve’s spine makes a mountain range out of his flawless, unmarred backside. The stark notches of his vertebrae protrude like little snow-capped peaks beneath the Winter Soldier’s touch. 

No. He is not a child of war and winter, not here. In this memory, he is _Bucky_. Bucky, only Bucky. 

Blond hair hovers beneath his nose, all neat and golden. It’s wet. Steve stands before him, back exposed and head lolled to the side as hot water cascades down upon him… trickling down his bared throat, too, Adam’s apple bobbing as he swallows. Licks his lips. Is Steve waiting for him? To do what? He’s tense… no, Steve is beyond tense, he's downright _nervous_ , and his fingers are quivering slightly… but only slightly.

Despite all this... still, Steve waits. Vulnerable, open, trusting. The gentle slope of Steve’s neck seems like a proper place for a kiss. Sensitive, Bucky knows that throat to be. Sweet as honey, too. Bucky bets he’d have Steve melted in a heartbeat if he put his mouth there, right now. Steve would go all soft and pliant against him… curving into him, _for_ him. 

So much steam. Bucky begins to hum a little tune whose title he can’t quite recall at the moment, his voice all deep and low. Still cheery-sounding, although he slurs a bit. He wants Steve to relax for him, as Steve should always be relaxed when around him, and he silently wills those taut, skinny sinews of muscle to loosen. He's rewarded with a shiver from Steve in response, and the rosy flush that’d steadily been creeping across the other man’s fair skin suddenly darkens several shades to a rich red. One hand separates from the wall to slowly pull a sodden washcloth from Steve’s clenched fist. He gently brushes the fabric along the trail of that tantalizing spine, his half-smirk growing ever wider.

“’Lemme wash your back,” he says, purring those words into the junction where Steve's bony-sharp shoulder transitions seamlessly into smooth throat. It _is_ a sweet spot—Steve's body betrays him, his muscles fluttering beneath his skin in response to Bucky's lips upon his neck—but Steve bites back whatever lovely noises threaten to escape. 

“We’re too old to still be fooling around like this, Buck,” Steve quickly interjects, blond head still steadfastly fixed downward. Bucky’s silly, booze-giddy smirk melts away the moment those soft, strained words register in his sluggish brain. His drunken euphoria follows the whirl-pooling water down, down into the pipes. 

“Someone is going to catch us one day… people are gonna start thinking things, you know? They’ve… they’ve gotta be wondering, by now... I don't want you to lose your job... and what about… what about your… your _girl_ —” Steve’s whispery-thin voice shatters like glass. His quiet words fade away until only a strained silence, as tense and rigged as his trembling shoulders, remains. He says nothing more. 

The steam grows thicker, heavier. Bucky can no longer discern whether the engulfing whiteness belongs to the memory or if it’s his former masters’ “programming” coming into play. A sense of panic and desperation sets in. The Winter Soldier wishes that Bucky would move— would do something, say something, say _anything._ He pleads with James Buchanan Barnes to give in, _please just give in_ … to swallow his bitter fears and foolish pride... to pull Steve to him while he still can and never, ever let him go… to embrace Steve as he should be embraced, to hold him close— so close Steve can feel how Bucky’s heart beats for him, only him, even if it is terrifying, forbidden, wrong… No. _Not wrong_. Not wrong because loving Steve Rogers could never be wrong. 

They were still real people at this remembered point in time— two _ordinary_ young men who still had the audacity to hope big hopes and dream big dreams. They still carried laughter in their hearts and felt it freely upon their tongues. They were _real people_ — not just soldiers caught up in a war after a war after a war. They were real people who fully believed that they would live their lives like anyone else and die peaceful, simple deaths— and they were so blissfully unaware of the cruel, looming future that would change them, make enemies out of them, fate eliminating Bucky Barnes right out of Steve’s life for nearly a century. At this remembered point in time, neither has any clue that they are to be separated by time, ice, and death itself… only for their ill-fated, star-crossed destinies to ensure the collision of their convoluted lives once more, years later.

Bucky would find Steve again— 

At the end of his gun.

In this memory, though... Steve and Bucky are still spring- and summer-men. In this warm, hazy memory... they are still opposite sides of the same coin; a matched pair all caught up in one another’s gravitational pull. They still walk side by side, arm in arm, and Bucky thinks that trying _not_ to love Steve is perhaps the sickest, most unnatural thing he has ever done.

But he doesn’t give in. “I love you”, those three simple words, remain unsaid, and they burn themselves into the soft pink flesh of Bucky’s throat until he has convinced himself that he can no longer feel their sting. Steve is the one who ends up surrendering. Quietly, courageously, he relinquishes his hold on hope and accepts that this _thing_ they do will probably never mean anything substantial. It's pleasurable catharsis. Just some drunken fucking. Steve stops wishing for any confessions of deeper feelings and starts kissing Bucky back, squeezing his eyes shut as he leans in to slots their mouths together.

Only now that he has lost Steve, lost him in every way, does Bucky see the obvious truth. Steve thought that Bucky did not love him back.

_Oh Steve, how could you not see that you were my whole world?_

Because Bucky had been stupid, young, and so very, very afraid. Because he'd kept his mouth shut at all the wrong times.

 _Say it! Tell him that you love him!_ He screams at Bucky Barnes, willing himself to take control of the body that had once been his. But he cannot alter the past… hell, he can barely survive the _present_... and so the Winter Soldier’s former self remains deaf to his pleas. The memory, uninterrupted, continues to play out. 

Steve swallows sadness with each of his pleasured gasps until Bucky finally silences him with a tongue in his mouth and teeth at his jaw. Regrettably, discreetness must be king during these moments of intimacy— the apartment walls are too thin and Steve, far too loud. Nonetheless, despite the risk, Bucky can't help but love how Steve screams as he falls apart beneath him, too undone to care who might overhear. Even with sorrow simmering just beneath the surface, Steve is still so achingly beautiful as he opens himself up for Bucky. Oh god, how Bucky yearns to say it, to tell Steve exactly how perfect he is— was? Steve is so different here, in the dream, from the way he is now... and the Winter Soldier just doesn’t know anymore, doesn't know what to _think_ , he doesn’t know doesn’t know _doesn’t know doesn’t know doesn’t know doesn’t know_

Control of the situation spirals away like grains of sand between cupped fingers. He has no real sense of who he is anymore. Can’t tell where the present consciousness of himself ends and this remembered boy named Bucky Barnes begins. Suddenly it’s all just too much. Pressure boils in his lower stomach and a migraine blooms behind his eyes. And then there is _Steve_ … Steve staring up at him with those huge blue eyes, so small yet _not_ , as both allow themselves to be consumed by the alcohol in their blood and the steam in their lungs. They come together. Steve's blond head lolls back helplessly as Bucky’s hand creeps _lower_. 

A low, rumbling moan bursts forth from deep within Bucky's chest, more growl than sigh. Steve is right there to meet it, always eager to prove to Bucky that he isn’t as glass-fragile as he might seem. His high-pitched yelp goes all molten in Bucky’s mouth, a noise so frantic and primal it can barely be contained between their lips. And then… _heat_. A heat unlike any other; a breathtaking, engulfing warmth more powerful than any bullet’s cauterizing burn. A heat he did not know he could still feel, even if only remembered. 

His hand— it’s between Steve’s legs, slowly traveling lower, deeper, _inside_. Inside Steve. One finger, buried to the second knuckle. Two. _Warm_. He crooks a finger. Must’ve done something right because Steve likes that, likes that, likes that a lot. He comes apart for him, his teeth sinking into those beautiful beestung lips— a desperate attempt to stifle his mewling. Steve’s blunt fingernails bite into Bucky’s back, gouging crimson crescents across his shoulder blades. He adds a third finger. Steve’s little body eagerly swallows him up, taking it all, hungry for more. And he watches, watches as his digits disappear into Steve’s aching-hot warmth. 

Too much. Too much, too much. Each shockwave of pleasure feels like a jackhammer to his skull. The cream-colored tiles melt away… and then the shower head. The bar of soap. Everything has blurred into the mist, drifting away. But not Steve. Steve remains. 

He gives a sharp snap of his hips. Steve sings for him, and Christ, _yes _, this is where he belongs, where he has always belonged, fitting into this other man so smoothly, perfectly, like a hook into its eye.__

Bucky chokes on love and spits up lust instead. His mouth grazes the shell of Steve’s ear and he utters an incomplete, second-place substitute for his true feelings: “God, Steve, I need you _so fucking much_.” 

* * *

.  
.  
.

The Winter Soldier awakens. His mouth is parched, his lips cracked. The taste of toxic revulsion coats his throat, clogging it. He can scarcely breathe. 

He’s hard. Painfully hard. It disgusts him. The tent in his sweatpants is nothing but a taunt, a jeer. It is a pair of disgusted lips curling back, his own lips, and they hiss “ _Monster, monster. Pathetic, hollow. How dare you still crave pleasure when all you have done is take, and kill, and ruin"_ straight into his head.

 _You don’t even know who you are, Bucky Barnes._

He strokes the slumbering kitten until his shameful erection flags, neglected and aching. How long it takes, he does not know.

Time, like memories, does not cooperate well with damaged minds. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Take note: I've made some slight adjustments to the tags. References made to WWII-era homophobia are extremely slight in this chapter (and this chapter only), but let me know if anyone thinks I should adjust the rating from M to E. The sex wasn't quite as non-explicit as I remembered. 


End file.
